New area, New companion

Monday July 13, 2015

Hola familia!

A ton has happened this last week. Elder Conrad went home, new comp, new area and all of that. My new area is called Cacalotepec. Its a tiny pueblo out in the middle of no where but I really like it. My new companions name is Elder Romero. Hes from Mexico city and he is a really funny guy. We have a lot of good laughs and we've been working really hard together. Turns out he goes home after this next change! This will be my second of two companions that finish their missions with me.

This morning me and Elder Romero went to some sweet plazas here in Puebla for our p-day. One of the pictures is of me and Elder Romero there at one of the plazas. The zone that I'm in right now is a really well off area but my ward is a bit of a more poor area. But I really love it here. Compared to my last area, there is a lot less paved roads, a lot more mosquitoes and a lot more fields.

Right now we are working with the Conde family to get baptized. Its a family of 5 and they are all ready they just need to get married and then the whole family can get baptized. They are such a humble and loving family. The 5 of them all live in a house probably about the size of my room at home but they are all just so happy and content to be together as a family.

Also we are helping this girl in our ward to prepare to serve a mission. She is a recent convert and she is such a faithful member. She took the lessons for a year straight and couldn't get baptized because her parents wouldn't let her. When it came close to her 18th birthday her parents told her that if she got baptized they would disown her. She got baptized the day after her 18th birthday and she is now living with a family in the ward. Although she is just a recent convert, she wants to leave for her mission as soon as she turns 19. Shes been baptized for a couple months so we go over and teach her and the family shes living with sometimes so she can learn more about the gospel and start to prepare for a mission.

I really love my new area and love being a missionary. Have a good week everyone!

Elder Del Toro

1) The baptism me and Elder Conrad had right before he went home
2) Welcome to Cacalotepec
3) Me and Elder Romero at some of the plazas here in Puebla

Huge fridge, Tiny stairwell

Monday July 6, 2015

Hello family!

This week was another great one. This was Elder Conrad's last week in Mexico so we had a super good time. And I'm finally ending my training! Also turns out I have changes tomorrow so Ill be leaving Huejotzingo and going to another area in the mission.

This week it rained super hard! Two nights in a row we ended up running home through the rain without jackets and got absolutely soaked. And it was crazy because we could see our breath out in the rain! Who would have thought it would be so cold here when its so hot at home?

We had another baptism! We baptized Hermana Zuleyma this last Saturday. It was super awesome to have another baptism a couple days before Elder Conrad leaving so we were really excited. And then that night she was moving her house so we helped her move some stuff up 4 flights of stairs. We had to move a huge fridge up a tiny stairwell up 4 floors and man was that rough. We might have ruined her fridge but we got it up which was a miracle in itself.

Things have been going really good and I'm loving being a missionary!

Have a good week everyone!

Elder Del Toro

A little cool weather

Monday June 29, 2015

Hello family!

Sorry I wasn't able to send a group email home last week we had tons of stuff going on. And these next couple weeks wont be much better because my companion will be going home in a few weeks. But these last couple weeks have been awesome! And I have pictures! We have a newer rule in the mission that we can't take pictures on non p days so it gets tricky to find times to take pictures on one day of the week but I managed to get a couple.

We are sure enjoying literally half of the St. George temperature here. Right now in Huejotzingo its 50 F! Its been a little chilly and I'm not one to complain about a little cool weather.

I got a little sick about a week ago. The hermanas in our district gave us some cream cheese chocolate spread and I ate it up. But it turned about to be about a month old so I got pretty sick. And then a couple days after,  Elder Conrad got it pretty bad too. Hes been sick for about a week straight and he claims that Mexico is trying to get all it can out of him before he goes home. He thinks he has a bug so hes going to go on a detox thing this week hahaha.

We had a baptism! We baptized Rodrigo Flores. He is such an awesome guy. He has been through so much in his life and completely turned his life around and is now a member of the true church if Jesus Christ. We are so excited for him and now his next goal is to get the Priesthood! Elder Conrad baptized him and I had the opportunity to confirm him into the church.

Also we had a 8 hour zone conference combined with Cholula. It was really great but 8 hours of just listening to Spanish hurts your brain a little bit! The conference was really good though and we talked about a lot of really good stuff on being better missionaries.

And I'm writing so late because we spent most of the day in Puebla. Elder Condrad had an interview in Puebla and President got backed up on interviews so we ended up being there a little longer than we thought we thought.

Have a good week everyone!

Elder Del Toro

1) Me, Rodrigo, Elder Conrad and Rodrigo's good buddy in the ward, Hermano Cadena.
2) The district after a district meeting we had.

"Removing the Poison of an Unforgiving Spirit"

Monday June 15, 2015

Hello family!

This week was another great week. We are working hard and we are hoping to have a couple baptisms the next couple weeks! This last week was a pretty big service week. We had the opportunity to help lots of different people.

All of our investigators are progressing great. Rodrigo is going to be baptized this Saturday and then we have another investigator named Zuleyma the following week. We are really excited for the success we've been seeing and all of the awesome new people we are meeting.

We have another investigator who while we were teaching him, he told us he was having a hard time forgiving his father from what he did to him as a kid. I printed him out a talk from 1983 named "Removing the poison of an unforgiving spirit" by H. Burke Peterson. Its a talk that my dad showed me a while before I came out on my mission and me and my companion found it in Spanish and gave it to him. And that talk definitely touched his heart. He is talking to his dad again and he is continuing to progress. Although we may think that we don't have anyone whom we haven't forgiven, inside most of us still have unresolved grudges against others including myself. The part in it that touches me the most is when it talks about a polish father during world war II. It talks about how the Nazi solders lined up family: his wife, two daughters, and three sons against a wall and open fired on his family. He begged to die with them but they kept him alive. And that part of the story that strikes me the most, is that when observers noticed him, he seemed so peaceful and calm. But with further interrogation, they found out these horrible things that had happened to him. He chose from right then, to forgive those soldiers for these awful things that had happened. And wow what an example to me. At times in life, we chose to hold grudges against others but we never realize the damage it is doing to ourselves. Our savior was spat upon, mocked, beaten and also was scourged and crucified and while on the cross, he asked the father for the forgiveness of the roman soldiers who had crucified him. Jesus Christ is the greatest example of forgiveness and still continues to forgive us on conditions of repentance. Go to him in prayer for the strength to forgive others. I love my savior and thank him for the mercy he offers me and I look forward to the day when I may feel the prints in his hands and in his feet and wash his feet with my tears because of his eternal sacrifice. I love this gospel and I love my savior and redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Have a great week everyone.

Elder Del Toro

Snow in June

Monday June 1, 2015

Hello family!

This week was another great one. Its been a little chilly here in Huejotzingo! The volcano got some snow and we've been a little cold. We're still without lights and now we're out of water! We went and we got a candle so we don't kill the battery on our phone and so now we have candles to find our way around at night haha.

This last week we started teaching an awesome new investigator! Her husband is an member but she is not and she has started taking the lessons with us recently. She is way awesome and so receptive to everything we are teaching her. The other day we had a lesson with them and we asked the husband how the Book of Mormon has blessed his life and he just began to cry. He bore such a strong testimony about the Book of Mormon and how much he wants the gospel for his wife. She accepted baptism but there are a few things we have to figure out
before she can get baptised but we are so excited for them.

We have so many people that are ready for baptism and we are just trying to help them get there! There is a lot of work to be done here in Puebla with so much potential and we are so excited to progress the growth that is happening here. Have a great week everyone!


Elder Del Toro

From the light of a Nokia phone

Monday May 25, 2015

Hello fam!

All is great here in Huejo. Me and Elder Conrad got our lights cut because the hermanas before us hadn't paid a light bill in a year. So they cracked down. We've been going the last week with the light off our little nokia phone haha.

Wow this last week we have seen miracle after miracle. One day me and Elder Conrad were walking down a main road with a member on our way to a lesson, and a guy just pulls over in his truck and asked us if we wanted a ride! At first we thought he was a member but after talking to us, he wasn't. He said he was just driving, and saw us walking and knew that we were missionaries of the true church and he had to pull over and talk to us. He said that he wants to get baptized as soon as possible and we were absolutely blown away! He lives in Puebla so the missionaries over there will be able to teach him but it was an awesome experience.

Also the investigators of ours that were trying to figure out his divorce to his other wife are finally going to be able to be baptized! They have been taking the missionary lessons for years and we helped them get a hold of a lawyer that is a member and so he just has to go into Puebla and sign a paper and they can be baptized! As soon as they got off the phone with the lawyer they asked us, "so when is the soonest we can be baptized?" And wow we are beyond excited for them. They are so ready so be baptized.

We are seeing so many different people's lives changed and we are so happy to be messengers of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ here in the latter days.

Have a good week everyone!

Elder Del Toro

1) Fitted with a new pin a bought that says "siempre unidos" or "forever united" and it has a Mexican and an american flag on it. Me and my comp got a pretty good kick out of it.
2) The licence plate says "I am a bull... are you?"
3) Our district after our meeting we had in Nealtican.

Rainy Season is Here

Monday May 18, 2015

Hello family!

This week was another good one. Not too much is changing here and everything is going great! And the famous Puebla rainy season has definately started. Its been a little off and on, but when it comes down, it comes down. And every time it starts pouring, me and Elder Conrad just happened to forget our rain jackets so we get absolutely dumped on haha.

Our mission had the oportunity to hear from Elder Pino of the quarum of the 70! He spoke on some awesome stuff for us to work on as a mission and the spirit was so strong durring the whole meating. Near the end, he showed us a talk from Bruce R. McConkie about the atonement of Jesus Christ that is called "the Purifying Power of Gethsemane". If you get a chance to look it up it is definately a new favorite of mine. It was President McConkie's final testimony as a prophet and it is such a powerful talk.

This next week we are having two more members of the 70 coming to speak to our mission! We are having Elder Christenson and Elder Pieper come speak to us.

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Del Toro